


Shenanigans: Geronimo Edition

by aparticularbandit



Category: Deputy (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:42:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22330525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: (Asking your doctor out after they get finished stitching you up isn't exactly good manners, but ain't no one ever called Deputy Bill Hollister proper.)EDIT: bits and pieces that don't make it into the original fic, as well as the original first chapter pre-Valeria.
Relationships: Bill Hollister/Paula Reyes
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Shenanigans: Geronimo Edition

**Author's Note:**

> -rubs forehead-
> 
> MAN I HOPE THIS IS GOOD Y'ALL. HOLLISTER WRITES SO DIFFERENT THAN ROISA. BUT HERE IT'S A TRY.

The bullet ripped its way across his arm, _not_ narrowly missing him the way so many other bullets from their perpetrator had as he raced away from them, but Hollister ignored the white hot pain burning into his skin. With his adrenaline running the way it was, he almost couldn’t even feel it; the more he chased after Luciano, the less he felt it, and by the time he’d caught up to him, he’d forgotten it was even there at all.

Until he was bending the man’s hands into his one size fits all handcuffs, and then the searing pain tore into his arm and reminded him that, no, he wasn’t coming away unscathed.

He lifted one bare hand to touch the gash in his arm only to find a matching sharp shearing slash in his side and grunted. Not too much blood loss. Didn’t feel woozy. Just a lot of pain.

There was probably enough time to get this ass back to the station before he got reacquainted with the local hospital.

_Probably._

* * *

_Or not._

Hollister kept his head held high as much as he could as he strode into the hospital. Well. Not _into the hospital_. They’d taken one look at his gunshot wounds in the emergency room and called him back before he’d had the chance to sit down. Not his first choice; there were plenty of others probably needed to be seen before he did, since he’d made it this long without someone (and he _did_ understand the idea of putting pressure on a wound to stop the bleeding, like he’d done with the slash in his arm), but may have been they just wanted him bleeding in a room in the back instead of in one of those even less comfortable seats in the big waiting room.

Smart move.

He closed his eyes as time ticked on – in a hospital sometimes felt like that was all you could hear, just that ticking in the silence that could drive a grown man mad, but just outside the emergency room, it was a different story – there was the pounding of shoes as someone rushed down the hall, the squeak of the wheels on one of their gurneys as it was torn past his room (glad he wasn’t on one of those; it’d be a bit soon for his liking, but in his line of work he’d probably end up on one eventually anyway), then that little click of the latch as the door to his room finally opened – best wait until the doc said his name before opening his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for him yet.

“Bill Hollister?”

_She, not he._

The door clicked shut as he opened his eyes.

Not an angel. He was certain she was not an angel if only because his mama’d taught him growing up that he wouldn’t ever see any angels ‘cept when he died and he’d always been the sort to believe her. Hadn’t been given any reason not to. Thought this woman might’ve been the closest to one he’d ever seen, though, and he pressed a little harder on the slash on his stomach just to feel the pain. Couldn’t be dead if he was still feeling pain, so she couldn’t be an angel.

Looked like what he’d imagine one would look like, though. Sounded like one, too.

“Bill Hollister?” she repeated, glancing up from his charts, eyes widening as they met his, and she nodded once as an encouragement, just that small tilt of a thing.

He realized he hadn’t said anything yet and cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, that’s me.”

“Paula Reyes,” the doctor said. “I’ll be the intern taking care of you this evening.”

 _Intern, not doctor._ Huh. Either she was real smart or they thought he needed just about as much help as _he_ thought he needed, which was close to none. Probably both. Woman like that must be pretty smart. He couldn’t imagine _any_ doctor – intern or otherwise – not being smart.

Reyes glanced over him – all cuts and blood and dirt and grease and he wished he looked a little more cleaned up but then he wouldn’t need to be here meeting her, would he? – before taking a stool over next to him and sitting down on it. “Shirt off.” She seemed to focus on his roughed up badge instead of his face as he unbuttoned his shirt, but as soon as it was gone, she was prodding at the cut in his side with deft little fingers.

He hissed in pain. “You gotta press on it like that?”

“Yes.” Reyes didn’t look up. She sighed and scooted back, removing her gloves with a snap. “You’re going to need stitches. I’ll be right back.”

Hollister wanted to stop her and ask her about the slash in his arm, but he guessed she’d already made her decisions on that without having to press on it the way she had the gash in his stomach. Made sense to him. Arms get slashed and bled a lot, but unless it was real bad it wasn’t real bad. Stuff on your stomach could be a hell of a lot more dangerous. Could’ve hit some sort of internal organ. He must not have winced enough for her to think it was that bad, though.

He took a deep breath – his side throbbed where she’d pressed it – and closed his eyes again. Hospitals made him nervous. Couldn’t say why. In this room off the emergency room, they didn’t smell as much of sick like the floors he was normally on did. Spent too much time on one of them to ever want to go back. But _couldn’t say why_ he didn’t like them. Hospitals – doctors – were in the practice of healing people, not making them sicker. Kind of like deputies. Like politicians should be if they ever got their head out of their ass and started thinking about someone other than them like they were elected to do, like they’d lied about doing.

Best not to think politics right now. He was in _enough_ pain without getting his blood literally boiling.

Hands at his side again – he must’ve missed the door, must’ve not heard what the ~~angel~~ ~~doctor~~ _intern_ ’d said, if she’d said anything at all – and it stung, stung, _stung_ enough that his eyes snapped open. “Cleaning before stitching?”

“Yep.” Reyes pressed another gauze against his side. “We don’t play with infections here.” The stinging stopped as she removed the gauze, only for it to flare up again as she began stitching his skin back together again. “Let me guess,” she started again, her eyes flicking up ever so briefly to meet his, “these are gunshot wounds.”

“Yep.”

“From a chase of some sort.”

“Yep.”

“You shoot him, too?”

“Shot at him. Hard to hit a moving target while it’s shooting at you.” Hollister winced as he rubbed at the scruff on his chin. It itched. “Guess you don’t have to worry about patching him up.”

“Would’ve patched him up just like I patch you up,” Reyes said with a sigh. “Given the option, I would’ve patched him up _first_ if he needed it more.”

“They give you the option?”

“No.” Reyes didn’t even blink. “Good thing this one only grazed you. You would’ve been in a hell of a lot of trouble if it’d been just a little bit—”

“—further to the right?” Hollister asked, unable to keep himself from smiling.

Reyes looked up. “ _Left_ , actually.”

“Close enough.” He grunted. “Would’ve been the right decision, if I’d shot him, patching him up first.” Hollister rotated his arm, wincing when he pulled at the gash in it. “He would’ve been hurt more.”

“Very macho of you.”

Something in her tone indicated disgust, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d think that she’d started pulling on the stitching a little harder. “I say something wrong, Dr. Reyes?”

“No. Nothing wrong at all.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing wrong.”

Reyes’s eyes flicked up again, brief. “You ever work retail, Deputy Hollister?”

His eyebrows raised. “Two summers during high school, three part time jobs over the two years waiting on being old enough to enroll as a deputy. Why?”

“Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say _nothing is wrong_.”

Hollister nodded. “I ask you off the clock, you gonna tell me something’s wrong?”

“No, I’m going to ignore you unless you’re bleeding out in front of me.” Reyes glanced up again. “Don’t mistake small talk for actual interest, deputy.”

Another nod, an acknowledging grunt. “Let me guess – too many work hours, not enough breaks, ones you’ve got aren’t enough time to eat anything, running on not enough sleep and not enough caffeine, but you’ve got to stay awake long enough to get the job done and they won’t let you leave. Sometimes you get a protein bar in between patients, but that’s not really enough.”

“Hospital business.” Reyes’s lips quirked upward in something like a smile but not quite. “At least we get paid better than retail. Or _will_ when it’s not an internship.”

“You’d think doctor business would know how to doctor its doctors.”

“Doctor _business_ doesn’t actually give a shit about anybody.” Reyes looked up with that same quirk to her lips. “Businesses don’t give a shit, _people_ give a shit. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Hollister chuckled. “Didn’t have to hear it from you. Know it from the bureaucratic asses who are so far removed in their ivory tower that they don’t know how to do leg work anymore but make laws like they do.” His eyes lifted. “It’s not unique to hospitals.”

“I did say _businesses_ , not just _doctor business_.” This time Reyes didn’t look up, just pulled a little bit to tighten his stitching. “Almost done here, and then you can be on your way.”

His brows raised again. “Arm don’t need fixing?”

Reyes took a breath. “Didn’t look like it to me, but I can stitch it up, too, if you’re worried about it.”

“Nah. I trust you.” He rotated his shoulder again, wincing a little bit. “Probably shouldn’t ask you out while you’re on the clock either, huh.”

That got her to look up, brows almost hitting her hairline. “Shouldn’t ask me while you’re high on pain meds, either.”

“Haven’t taken any pain meds.”

“Or while you’re high on adrenaline.”

Hollister chuckled. “That wore off a while ago. But thanks for the concern.”

Reyes pulled back on the thread, finished tying a little knot, pulled it all a little tighter, and then cut the thread. “There. Done.” She pushed her stool back, glanced over his arm once, and then nodded. “I can clean it up for you, if you want, but you don’t need more than that.”

“Nah,” Hollister said, shaking his head. “Go get back to saving lives. Job needs done more than babysitting my ass.” He rotated his arm again, winced. “Thanks for the stitching.”

“Don’t exert it for a few days, or you’ll end up back here with the stitches pulled out.” Reyes’s eyes met his again, briefly. “No more gun chases. I don’t want to see you complaining, got it?”

Hollister smiled. “Got it.” He pulled his shirt back on. “Means I can go now, right?”

“It does.”

“Good.” He started buttoning his shirt. “Got a couple of things I want to do, got to do them quick.” He grinned. “No gun chases or anything like that. Just good solid—”

Reyes’s face steeled itself.

“I’m boring you.”

“You want to have this chat; I might as well be patching your arm up. You make a big show about me doing my job, let me do my job.”

“Fine. You got a job needs doing, go do the job.”

Reyes rolled her eyes. “Don’t need your permission, _deputy_.”

By the time Hollister looked back up from buttoning his shirt, the door was slamming shut behind her. He grinned, chuckled a little bit. Someone might’ve said they were bickering like an old married couple, but wouldn’t’ve been him. Seemed to be getting along well enough. And he liked her. That was easy enough. Didn’t think it’d be necessarily proper to do anything about it, though. Wouldn’t have if one of his old customers had—

Well, there was Sheila. She’d been fun.

Besides, ain’t no one ever said Deputy Bill Hollister was known for being proper.


End file.
